


Two Weeks

by dancer_me



Category: Alta Mar | High Seas (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Eva POV, F/M, I'm not okay with what happened, Pining, season 2 finale spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:14:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21625120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancer_me/pseuds/dancer_me
Summary: Eva reflects on her feelings of a future without Nicolas Vazquez.
Relationships: Nicolás Vázquez/Eva Villanueva (Alta Mar)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 43





	Two Weeks

**Author's Note:**

> I binge watched this series in 2 days and I was on a roller coaster of emotions. Amidst all the intrigue, I had comfort in loving the relationship of trust and chemistry Eva and Nicolas had. They worked together and lasted, even after all the scares and the drama (she held him at gun point - normally that might damage a relationship). 
> 
> But then... the series ended and left Eva to be the other woman. 
> 
> And I mean, OK. PLOT TWIST. What a surprise in a show that was FULL OF UNREASONABLE PLOT TWISTS. 
> 
> This is a coda to the Season 2 finale, since I felt absolutely ROBBED of Eva’s happily ever after. This isn’t a fix-it; it’s a deeper look into Eva’s angst.

Eva Villanueva has been described in her life as headstrong, reckless, and impulsive. At this point in time, as she stood by the car door watching Nicolas wait for his long-lost wife, she felt anything but.

She felt lost. Weak. A fool. A fool for falling in love in just two short weeks.

Two weeks was all it took for so many lives to fall apart.

Two weeks, and now suddenly all she had left to love and trust was Carolina.

She’d started the voyage with so much more than that – including a heart, fully intact, and completely her own. But in two weeks, she’d made the mistake of giving it to a man who, as it turned out, had left his heart in the possession of a woman who was still very much alive and reclaiming what was hers right here and now in Rio.

Eva knew she should be happy for Nicolas. Who was so lucky in life to receive such a gift? To have thought a loved one so tragically lost, but then have a second chance with them? This was a miracle.

When Nicolas told her the news, everything about his eyes and his body language was screaming of an internal conflict so deep he could have very well lost himself in it. Would it be a comfort for her in the days and years to come, that Nicolas had considered, but for an instant, not replying to his wife and putting her behind him so he could have a future with Eva?

She could have advised him to do just that – after all, he’d been looking to her for answers. He told her that what they’d had between them was real, and by God, how she desperately wanted to believe it.

But could she live with herself for encouraging that decision? For making Nicolas choose between a woman he’d spent two adrenaline and passion filled weeks with, and the previous love of his life, thought lost to the perils of war?

After all the moral ambiguity and the selfishness she’d bore witness to over this voyage, she knew she could not. She could not have her own morals and her ability to look herself in the mirror every morning be yet another casualty of the Barbara de Braganza.

So, she’d told Nicolas to reply to the telegram and go back to Chantal. And then she’d ran. But on the ship, there really wasn’t far enough to run. In the end she’d shared her bed with him, and she told herself it was a final parting gift to herself; a memory of what could have been. It had hurt so much more to run then to give herself the gift of the few days they had left together.

Nicolas had said Chantal was an adult – she would understand. Eva highly doubted he would tell his wife that the union was done after he had received news of her return to the living world. That would be just another secret the two of them had together.

In her peripheral vision, Eva saw a petit woman in a pink dress, her brown hair done up underneath a taupe hat, approach Nicolas.

This must be her. This must be his wife Chantal. This right here – this was the end in so many ways.

The iron fist around her heart squeezed that much tighter. Was she even breathing? She sucked in a deep, ragged breath just to be sure. She’d made this decision for Nicolas and herself. She would spend the rest of her life knowing she’d saved two out of their party of three from a lifetime of regret and heartache. She could live with that.

What she couldn’t live with was the achingly lost look on Nicolas’ face as he embraced his wife, holding her close. He wasn’t hers to be concerned about anymore. She had to expend what was left of her heart and her wit looking out for herself now. With Carolina married and Fernando forgiven and cleared of all wrongdoing, her sister had a new married life to devote herself to.

Eva had nothing.

Carolina was beside her now. The touch of her sister’s hand on her shoulder was all it took to break Eva out of the dark spell she’d fallen victim to, standing here watching Nicolas forget about her. It was so hard she may just die of heartbreak right where she stood. Carol clearly knew it, her gentle presence at Eva’s side urging her into the car.

“Let’s go, Eva.”

Eva acquiesced with a nod, opening the car door and risking one last sidelong glance at Nicolas. That, she vowed, would be the last she ever saw of him. She owed it to her personal well-being, and quite honestly her pride, to make it so.

She pushed Nicolas to the back of her mind, speaking to Carolina about the voyage and what was next in their journey. Fernando joined them in the car, and with that, they were on their way away from port.

And away from Nicolas and his wife.

Eva hadn’t seen Chantal’s face as she approached, and she pettily wondered what his wife looked like now. In the photo he kept in his drawer from their wedding, Chantal was a pretty woman. Had the weight of the war taken its toll on her as well, or was she still as beautiful as ever? She probably was, and Eva wasn’t enough.

God, did it ever sting her pride and bruise her heart even further.

Chantal’s telegram had said she had much to tell Nicolas – and well she must, Eva thought bitterly, knowing it had been years since Nicolas thought her lost to the Germans. What would her tale be? Eva hoped it would at least be intriguing, since Nicolas had said he had searched for her for years. She’s seen first-hand what he’s capable of when he puts his mind to something.

How is it then, that the year he gives up hope, Chantal finds him, out at sea, with a simple telegram that shatters Eva’s heart as collateral?

It doesn’t make any sense, and Eva wants to turn around, go kicking and screaming, and demand answers like she has this whole time. Is Nicolas going to be hurt in all of this, just like her? Or could it really be so simple?

But she can't go back. Carol is looking at her like she knows what Eva’s thinking, sitting here so uncharacteristically quiet in her seat. Like her sister has already given it some thought and arrived at the idea that it will just make Eva look desperate. It will cause a scandal.

It would ruin her future prospects, this two week romance gone sour.

But really, if Eva were to be truly honest with herself, which after this last voyage she's realized is the only person who is truly capable of being wholeheartedly honest with her... Eva was already ruined for anyone else.

Nicolas could have been - should have been - the one.

There would be no one else.

But she'd be damned if he ever knew.

 _“And don’t you stray too far away.”_ He’d said, before they shared one last heartachingly perfect kiss that never failed to stoke a fire within her.

What had he really been asking for when he said that? How could he even ask that of her?

It was one thing for her to be the other woman when his wife was supposedly dead. She did not fear competition with a ghost. If Chantal had truly loved Nicolas in her lifetime, she would want Nicolas to be happy in her afterlife.

It was yet another thing for Eva to be the other woman and share one first and last night together with a married man when emotions were running high, trapped on a cruise ship that seemed endlessly doomed and leaving everyone to wonder if they would ever see dry land again.

But it was truly another thing to stick around, on land, and be accessible to this man who found his first love again but was unable to walk away from his second.

Assuming, Eva reflected sadly as she toyed with her hands in her lap, that Nicolas had come to love her as well.

Eva heaved a deep sigh and stared out the window at the passing scenery of the coast of Rio.

Nicolas must have loved her, or at the very least believed he was capable of it during the two weeks they’d shared together, investigating mysteries and exploring their own feelings for one another. Even her bitter heart could lend him credit for his honesty and the real relationship they had with each other.

So yes, she could understand the sentiment of him wanting to keep her near to him. To have her not disappear as quickly as she had appeared in his life. To not say goodbye to this thrilling connection and _heat_ they had with each other. She knew in her very soul that their feelings were mutual, and that had things been different she would be leaving with him at this very moment. She would be back on the pier with him, not sitting in the back of this car with her sister and brother-in-law, where the quiet tension had almost taken on a physical presence of its own.

But life just simply didn’t have her future wrapped up in a neat bow. Her story didn’t have the happy ending. Perhaps she’d been an adulterer in a past life and this suffering was her penance.

Eva couldn’t do it – she couldn’t keep her promise to Nicolas.

She’d said she wouldn’t stray; had implied they would remain friends. But she already knew she wouldn’t do it. She’d die a slow, painful death from a broken heart, and she was far too proud to have that on her tombstone.

To have her cause of death be not from the hand of God or the violence of man – but from the lack of not having the one that belonged to another.

How absolutely, utterly _pathetic._

She’d said she wouldn’t stray. But her plan, most assuredly, was to go.

Eva would see Carol and Fernando settled in their new villa in Rio, and she would meet with her editor to discuss her new book. Success would be just the bittersweet elixer she needed to move on with her life.

And so, after she had taken some time to lick her wounds and obtain a clear plan for her future, Eva would depart on a new voyage. And she would go as far away from Rio, and Nicolas, as she could.

Carolina would eventually understand, and Nicolas? With his wife restored to him, Eva was confident that Nicolas would soon forget about Eva Villanueva.


End file.
